A Nigerian environmental activist and founder of I Lead Climate, Adenike Oladosu, has called for efforts towards the restoration of Lake Chad.

She said this at a virtual conference organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in commemoration of the Desertification and Drought Day celebrated by the UN on June 17.

She said, “More than 60 per cent of the world’s population, also in Africa, depend on agriculture for employment, and we are seeing drought-induced crisis; we are seeing floods that are affecting our agricultural produce, sweeping it away, making people lose their livelihoods.

“We keep advocating for the restoration of Lake Chad because we are seeing it as the next trend in affecting millions of people’s livelihoods culturally, economically and otherwise.”

According to the UN, land degradation is negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people with the climate crisis affecting people unequally.

It said restoring degraded land creates jobs, raises income and improves food security while helping biodiversity to recover.

Oladosu said, “The climate change crisis affects Africa the most. Women are bearing the brunt of it, and this is something we are seeing in the Sahel, the Lake Chad region. Two-thirds of people that are displaced are women and girls.

“We must have sanity in our environment. We must give women the chance to get involved because they are the ones at the front of the crisis.”